By El Nuevo Día - Thousands of citizens in Puerto Rico could benefit from the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program if the U. S. Supreme Court were to favor the arguments it will begin to receive this Monday in the case of Luis Vaello-Madero.
Between 305,000 and 354,000 low-income citizens with disabilities on the island would qualify for the federal benefit that has been denied to Puerto Rico residents by the SSI law issued by Congress in 1972, according to documents filed in federal court.
The family of Arnold Jay Ruiz Aviles is one of those waiting in hope that his SSI claim will be successful.
Excitedly, Ruiz Aviles' family received on Friday a copy of the "friend of the court" brief already filed by attorney Isabel Abislaiman with the U.S. Supreme Court, supporting Vaello Madero on behalf of other citizens who are suing the Social Security Administration in federal court, including a class action lawsuit.
Ruiz Aviles, born in 1981, suffers from disabilities associated with neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis, retinitis pigmentosa and is clinically blind, among other conditions that prevent him from engaging in income-generating activities to support himself. As a result, he was able to receive SSI while living with his family in New York between 1984 and 1985, but has been ineligible since moving to the island.
"We need this help, because it allows treatments for his vision, which is a very rare and degenerative condition that has many components," said Sandra Aviles, Ruiz Aviles' mother, to El Nuevo Dia.
Knowing the benefits of the program, he added that with SSI he can "have access to specialized physical therapies, occupational, vision therapy that is not available now."
"His main condition is neurological and in that area there have been discoveries, treatments that are not available to him now. Access to all those specialized things would be provided by ISS," he said. "With the therapies, he could develop motor skills. Right now, he relies on us to help him walk. My son is a patient who requires 24-7 care. There is no rest, no excuse. It is a situation in which we need all the help they can give us, in the same way they treat (these patients) in the United States.
With the same hope awaits the family of Emanuel Rivera Fuentes, who was born in 1986 and suffers from cerebral palsy, paralytic syndrome, hypothyroidism and hypothalamic dysfunction, among others, which keep him bedridden.
In an interview last year with El Nuevo Día, Rivera Fuentes' father, Don Abraham Rivera, spoke of the challenges faced by families of low-income people with disabilities.
"In my case, the medical expenses are very high because of my son's condition. In the middle of the pandemic alone, the deductible for his medication increased considerably, and this is what many families in Puerto Rico will see. I don't know how much SSI will be received, but whatever little it is, it will help in the situation we are in," she said.
In August of last year, then-President Donald Trump's administration indicated that SSI would have an impact on Puerto Rico of $1,800 annually.
Abislaimán's motion states that both citizens, like thousands on the island, will never pay "taxes, regardless of their place of residence," rejecting the U.S. government's argument that no federal taxes are paid in Puerto Rico.
"Their immediate concern is to cover medical care and basic needs," he stressed.
The Vaello-Madero case
In an important deadline in the attempt to have SSI applied in Puerto Rico, Vaello Madero's lawyers must submit to the federal Supreme Court this Monday their response to the U.S. government's claim, which asks to maintain Puerto Rico's exclusion.
Vaello Madero is a citizen who received SSI in New York since 1985 and moved to Puerto Rico in 2013. He continued to receive the benefit until the Social Security Administration found out and sued him to pay back the money they sent him until 2017: $28,000.
In ruling in favor of Vaello Madero, Federal Judge Gustavo Gelpi issued an opinion declaring it unconstitutional to exclude the defendant from SSI because he lives in Puerto Rico.
After the administration of then-President Donald Trump appealed, the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston upheld Gelpí's decision, positing that the exclusion violated the Equal Protection Clause in the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Despite Joe Biden's campaign promise to extend SSI eligibility to the island, last June his administration argued before the federal Supreme Court to reverse the decision in the case, arguing that the federal Department of Justice is accustomed to upholding the constitutionality of laws.
Following the response of Vaello Madero's lawyers on Monday, in the following seven days it is expected that different sectors will also express their views before the highest judicial forum in the United States.
It remains to be seen whether a favorable Supreme Court ruling will apply only to Vaello Madero or will apply to all other eligible residents of Puerto Rico.
Argument against the territorial clause
In response to the Biden administration, the group's motion in the Puerto Rico class action lawsuit argues that the application of Congress' powers under the Territorial Clause to legislate differently for the territories is inappropriate.
Abislaimán pointed out that in the federal government's lawsuit against Vaello Madero it did not present its interest in using those powers nor did it include the government of Puerto Rico as a party to the case.
In this sense, he argued that this case is not against a territory, but against individual citizens.
"Citizens residing in Puerto Rico are not abstract beings. They are humans protected by the same guarantees as all citizens of the United States," Abislaimán's motion stated.
It added that because SSI "is an assistance program for individuals, the rights at issue are also individual in nature. Indeed, SSI is, by its very design, a 'case-by-case' and 'individualized' program. SSI does not assess states or territory; it assesses individuals."
"Since SSI is a uniform national program created for the nation's neediest people, not as an earmark for states or territories, the question presented" by the federal government "is a convoluted premise that confuses people with acres, purports to treat fully protected U.S. citizens as territorial subjects without individual rights," he argued.
He argued that invoking the powers of the Territorial Clause is an "undue attempt to use it as a pretext for discrimination, both brutal and sophisticated.
"Territorial status in and of itself is not the cause of their disability or the reason they don't pay (federal) taxes," he argued.
"Excluding residents of Puerto Rico as a matter of 'routine' furthers no economic, social, or national health purpose. In fact, exclusion achieves the exact opposite of the program's stated mission: ensuring that sick people get sicker and poor people get poorer, and reinforces stereotypes and racial and ethnic origin discrimination against a certain class of U.S. citizens in a negative loop," he said. "This Court has the power to stop it, right here, right now."